The Newlywed Game Show - Over the Years

The Newlywed Game Show is a popular American game show on TV where four newly married couples compete against each other in a series of question rounds which reveals how well they do – or don’t – know their own spouses. The long-running game show has appeared in several different versions and has become famous for some of the arguments that newly married couples get into when their answers don’t match. Apparently a few couples have even filed for divorce after mutual differences during the filming of The Newlywed Game Show.

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The original version of The Newlywed Game Show made its debut on 11 July 1966 on the ABC network. It was created by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir. The first version was hosted by popular talk show host Bob Eubanks who invented the catchphrase “making whoopee” as a euphemism for sexual intercourse in order to circumvent network censorship. However, the phrase became so popular that Eubanks continued to use the word throughout the show's many runs, even during the episodes of the 1980s, 1990s and beyond, when he could easily have said "make love" or "have sex" without any trouble. At the time the network signed on Eubanks to host The Newlywed Game Show in 1966, he, aged 28, was the youngest emcee to host a game show. Eubanks hosted the ABC and first syndicated series of original version of The Newlywed Game Show and then returned to host The New Newlywed Game from September 1985 until December 1988.

The Newlywed Game was the last U.S. commercial network series to premiere in black and white, although it converted to color eventually in the September of 1966. Over the next few months more and more viewers were tuning into The Newlywed Game and it became a hit. On December 20, 1974, The Newlywed Game concluded its run as the second-longest running game show on ABC, the first being Family Feud. A special week-long series for Valentine's Day aired on ABC in February 1984 and was the last time the show aired on a broadcast network.

The original version of The Newlyweds Show started with four couples in competition. In the first year of the first ABC version, the husbands went off-stage first while the wives had to predict what their husbands would say. The first four questions in this round were worth 5 points. Then the wives would go off-stage as the husbands would be asked four 10-point questions and a 35-point bonus question, which usually decided the game. The maximum possible score was 95 points. The grand prize in this version was never a car or cash, but more of items that newlyweds required to set up their home like appliances, furniture, home entertainment systems, a trailer or motorcycles or even trips complete with luggage and camera.

From September 1985 until December 1988 the game show was re-christened The New Newlywed Game which Eubanks continued to host with minor changes. However in 1988, The Newlyweds Game show underwent the first of its major changes with some alterations in the scoring system. Correct answers were now paid off in cash and during the final question the couples could wager any part of their earnings up to that point. All couples kept their money which could go up to a maximum of $400, but only the winners took home the grand prize. Later in December 1988, Paul Rodriguez took over as host and the couples competing were then reduced to three. The show was now called The Newlywed Game Starring Paul Rodriguez.

In 1996, The Newlywed Game Show was revived and Gary Kroeger hosted the first season. The show was conducted under a much different format even though the number of competing couples was still three. In the changed format each spouse was shown a videotape of their mates who gave a statement mostly about their spouse. The tape was paused near the end which allowed the spouse in control a chance to predict how his/her mate completed the statement. In the second round, host Kroeger asked the couples a multiple-choice question in which one half of the couples had given answers in advance while the other must guess what they chose. Then there was another round where either the wives or the husbands gave some very weird facts about themselves and their mates had to say “That’s my wife/man” to the correct match. Despite these changes, the revived Newlyweds Game Show did not really catch the viewers’ fancy and after a year of struggling ratings Eubanks returned as the host while the format was changed back to the classic Newlywed Game format.

On April 6, 2009, The Newlyweds Game Show premiered on the Games Show Network. It was hosted by Carnie Wilson who continued till the end of its third season on July 30, 2010. The show retained the classic format, but only used three couples and added a new endgame featuring a couple from a previous version, referred to as "Goldyweds". The couple with the most points from the Goldyweds round won a bonus prize which was usually a piece of Sony technology. This version also introduced a question worth 20 points, called the "eHarmony Dimension Question" and was based on one of the "29 dimensions" used by the popular dating siteeHarmonyto match up couples. The couple with the highest score won the grand prize which was now a second honeymoon vacation.

In the 2009-10 season, The Newlywed Game allowed same-sex married couples to appear on the show. The first such couple was Star Trek actor George Takei and his husband, Brad Altman, playing in a special Celebrity Edition of the game against Damien Gurganius and Nicole Brewer of The Biggest Loser fame and My Fair Brady stars, Christopher Knight and Adrienne Curry. Cameron and Garrett Jackson were the first non-celebrity same sex couple to appear on the game show on June 17^th 2010 and who in fact went on to win the game's honeymoon grand prize.

The fifth and current season of The Newlyweds Game show premiered on April 18, 2011 with a new current logo and with Sherri Shepherd playing both roles of the host as well as the narrator.